


No Harbor Was His Home

by Haberdasher



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Issues, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: A Guardians of the Galaxy 2 AU fic where Ego stays on Earth as Peter’s father.This may sound like a fix-it fic.This is emphatically not a fix-it fic.





	No Harbor Was His Home

When Peter was born, Ego was there with Meredith in the hospital room.

(Ego had told Meredith time and time again that they didn’t need the help of doctors, that he could make sure that neither she nor their child was hurt, but she insisted on going to the hospital regardless.)

Ego looked at her and felt the positive hormones light up in the brain that he had constructed, allowed himself to indulge in the pleasant emotions that this body had created.

Ego looked at their child--small, red, screaming, declared by the doctor to be “a boy”--and felt a surge of hope entirely unrelated to his current body.

Maybe this time it would work.

Maybe this child would be the one.

And even if he wasn’t, something about the way those hormones lit up Ego’s human brain made him think that life on Earth with Meredith might not be so bad after all.

Meredith had to spell out Ego three times (”E-G-O, Ego--yes, like the word!”) before the nurse finally wrote it down as their son’s middle name, and though she didn’t say anything untoward, the nurse raised an eyebrow when Ego introduced himself as "Ego Quill, Peter’s father.”

As the nurse hastily left the room, Ego put the first few cells of a tumor into her spleen for daring to question his name, question his identity.

 

When Peter was one year old, Meredith consulted a dozen child-rearing books daily, though none of them had any advice about raising a demigod.

Still, the book’s advice bore fruit; Peter fell into line with every developmental mark they mentioned. He was practically a textbook case of a human child.

Meredith was pleased with this; while she loved Ego and was glad to raise his son, she was also glad to have a child that she knew how to handle.

Ego, on the other hand, was... less than pleased.

 

When Peter was two years old, he knew that his father was a space man (Ego had tried and failed to get him to use the word “Celestial” dozens of times over, but the word was mangled every time young Peter tried to say it), and that sometimes he was gone at nights because he had to go to his planet to rest up. Peter could walk and talk, just like those child-rearing books had predicted. And still nothing about him or his development appeared the least bit unusual for a human.

Meredith kept consulting the books.

Ego grew nervous.

 

When Peter was three, his father asked him to try envisioning something--anything--as hard as he could, and see if he could make the thing he was thinking of turn real.

Peter giggled for a moment before he realized that his father was being serious.

Peter dutifully thought as hard as he could and found that after a minute or two of concentration, a big blue ball had appeared in his hands, just as he had imagined it.

Peter’s first clear memory in later years was of that moment, of the way his father’s face lit up as Peter held the ball in his hand, and of their impromptu game of catch that ended with blue goop covering the kitchen floor, of the laughter that filled the house that night.

 

When Peter was four, he was sent off to preschool with strict instructions not to mention his dad being an alien to anyone there.

(Meredith had seen ET and didn’t much like the idea of her son being examined by some governmental agency.

Ego had seen ET with her and was positive both that he could take on the forces of the American government if need be, and that Meredith would much prefer it if he didn’t and their child had a normal human life, at least for a little while.)

Peter was a talkative child, and made a few friends quickly enough, and always came back from preschool with something to say about the day.

And if anybody found it unusual that Peter answered most questions about his father with “I’m not s’posed to talk about that”, well, nobody mentioned it to young Peter.

 

When Peter was five, Ego took him to see his planet for the first time.

It was the most beautiful thing that young Peter had ever seen.

Ego tried to explain how he and the planet were one. Most of the explanation went over Peter’s head; it was hard to focus when everywhere he looked, there was something new and extraordinary to see.

Missouri had nothing on this place, young Peter decided.

Ego took him back there every now and again. Their games of catch often went on for hours there, spanning from one end of the planet to the other.

 

When Peter was six, he sneaked away from his bedroom one night, intent on grabbing a cookie when he was supposed to be asleep.

(He had tried to make food for himself before, like Ego could and often did, but his cookies never came out nearly as good as the ones his mother baked.)

On the way to the kitchen, Peter heard his parents’ voices, but they didn’t sound like they normally did, calm and soft and loving. Their voices were loud and harsh now, and though Peter didn’t quite grasp the entirety of their conversation, he gathered that they were angry at one another for some reason.

Peter picked up the pace and was careful not to make a sound as he successfully grabbed a cookie and headed back.

As Peter passed by the room where he had heard his parents speaking before, cookie already shoved into his mouth, he didn’t hear either of their voices.

Peter risked glancing into the room and saw his mother on the floor, writhing and shaking, while his father stood there with a strange grin on his face.

Then the grin vanished, and the writhing stopped, and Peter’s father helped Peter’s mother off the floor while giving apology after apology, saying that he didn’t mean it, that he would never do it again... 

Though the cookie was sweet, there was a sour taste in Peter’s mouth as he sneaked back into his bedroom.

 

When Peter was seven, he would draw elaborate doodles on his schoolwork, sketching strange structures that could envelop entire pages.

When anybody besides his parents asked about the drawings, Peter retreated back to the phrase of “I’m not s’posed to talk about that” that he still commonly employed whenever the subject of his father came up.

What nobody besides Peter’s parents could have guessed was that the drawings weren’t just abstract sketches, they were plans, detailed outlines of how he would add to the planet that was both his and Ego’s one day.

 

When Peter was eight, he had an old witch of a teacher named Mrs. Dodd that seemed to have it out for young Peter, always quick to write off his accomplishments or admonish him for the smallest of misdeeds, including his frequent doodling in class.

One night, after she had torn apart a page filled with his scribbled handiwork, Peter sat in bed and thought about how he wished Mrs. Dodd would just go away somehow--not die (he didn’t want  _ anyone _ to die, not even her), but get sick with something bad so he could have someone nicer as his teacher instead.

The next morning, he was greeted in school not by Mrs. Dodd but by a tall blonde woman who announced that she was Miss Carter and that she would be taking over the class indefinitely, as Mrs. Dodd had abruptly fallen ill with a bout of pneumonia the night before.

Nobody in class understood why this news left Peter crying.

His parents knew, though. When Peter explained the story to them, even though he left out some of why he thought it was all his fault, they filled in the blanks easily enough.

Peter wasn’t sure what was worse--the horror in his mother’s eyes, or the pride in his father’s.

 

When Peter was nine, the big music store in town, Ostermann’s, got in a shipment of CD players. Peter and his parents saw them on a brisk fall afternoon when they had been window-browsing. The desire in his mother’s eyes was palpable, but the price was higher than they could afford, and so they walked on.

Later that afternoon, Ego parted from the group, claiming that he needed to use the bathroom. Peter sneaked a glance at his father and saw him heading in the direction of Ostermann’s.

That evening, Peter’s father invited the rest of the family into the living room, where he held a gift wrapped in newspaper. His mother eagerly tore apart the paper to reveal a CD player, just like the ones they had seen in Ostermann’s.

“Is this--” Peter’s mother started.

“Identical to the one you were eyeing, down to the molecule,” Peter’s father explained.

She gazed wide-eyed at the CD player as she held it in her hands. “What can it play?”

“Anything you want, my dear.”

The family spent the rest of the night listening to song after song on the CD player, singing and dancing and laughing the night away.

 

When Peter was ten, he still went to the planet he shared with his father and played long games of catch, but the two added new games into the mix, too. They worked to see who could make the highest tower, or the most spherical ball, or the finest grains of sand. Ego almost always won, and when he didn’t, Peter was pretty sure that his father was just letting him win.

One evening, Peter suggested a game of his own creation--making the biggest, deepest, widest hole they could make.

Ego’s face grew grim as he denied the boy’s suggestion, explaining that they could never go too deep below the ground upon which they now stood--that very deep within the planet there was a magnificent bright light, and if that light were to go out, the two of them could die.

Peter shrugged and agreed to the game his father quickly suggested as an alternative.

 

When Peter was eleven, he broke down and told his best friend, a boy in his grade named Mikey, everything--that his father was an alien, that he could conjure things out of thin air, that he and his father shared a planet millions of light-years away from Earth that was theirs and theirs alone.

Mikey asked him to prove it, but before Peter could properly focus on creating something, Mikey laughed and said that he knew Peter was just telling stories.

In the weeks that followed, the story traveled fast, until just about everyone in school knew that Peter Quill thought his dad was an alien.

Peter thought of poor Mrs. Dodds, who had made a full recovery from her pneumonia only after Peter moved up a grade, and let them laugh at him.

 

When Peter was twelve, he presented his father with a stack of papers, the outlines he’d drawn of how he would build upon Ego’s work on their planet.

Ego looked through only a handful of drawings before setting the stack aside.

“Dream bigger,” he said.

Peter was confused--his drawings had included grand spires and magnificent statues, entire cities molded to his every whim. How much bigger could he dream?

The confusion must have shown on Peter’s face, because his father stopped to clarify.

“Don’t just think about our planet, Peter. Imagine if you could create planets of your own, worlds of your own design. Think of everything you could ever make, and put it down on paper.”

Peter wasn’t sure that he entirely understood, but he nodded and took his father’s words to heart nonetheless.

 

When Peter was thirteen, one of his assignments for school was to give a short presentation about his family history to the rest of the class.

His mother’s half of the equation was easy--her uncle had an interest in genealogy and had mapped out practically every branch on the family tree, back to a fateful trip to Ellis Island and a small town back in the Old Country that the Quills had once called home.

But as for his father’s half?

Peter knew he couldn’t say that his father was a Celestial, couldn’t claim to a class of his peers that he was half-alien, not when he was still teased about that very claim from time to time.

Peter brought up the issue to his parents, and the three of them tried to puzzle out a solution together.

In the end, Peter said that his father was an immigrant from Liechtenstein, and that his father’s heritage could be entirely traced back to that same country.

The teasing abated only slightly, but by and large, his classmates took Peter at his word this time around.

 

When Peter was fourteen, he went to high school and found it to be more or less the same as middle school. Many of his middle school peers were attending the same high school as well, and while Peter had never met some of the other students, word traveled fast enough that he became an outcast in high school as well.

But then again, middle school hadn’t had Mr. Epstein.

Mr. Epstein was the school anatomy and biology teacher, and while Peter often doodled or dozed off in other classes, he paid rapt attention when Mr. Epstein was talking, taking note of the teacher’s every word. Peter wanted to learn everything he could about biology and anatomy, knew that this subject was one in which he needed to excel. And Peter’s attention in class paid off; among a sea of otherwise-middling grades, Mr. Epstein alone gave Peter not only an A but a high one at that.

Peter’s parents both attended parent-teacher conferences that year, and while other teachers complained about Peter’s doodling or suggested that he needed help focusing in class, Mr. Epstein sang the boy’s praises to his parents.

Near the end of his speech--and it was a speech, as the teacher had clearly prepared his words beforehand--Mr. Epstein said, “Mr. and Mrs. Quill, have you ever considered that your son might be gifted?”

Peter’s parents shared a glance with one another as they both struggled to avoid bursting into laughter.

 

When Peter was fifteen, he had the misfortune of running into Billy Baker.

Billy Baker was a bully through and through, picking on any target that he thought was beneath him, and in terms of social standing at their school, Peter certainly qualified. It wouldn’t be the first time the boys had run into each other and exchanged nasty words, but this time was different. This time would be the last.

Peter saw Billy out of the corner of his eye as he was shoving books into his backpack.

“Packing up for your starship, Peter? Gonna go head home to Mars, are you?”

Peter rolled his eyes and tried to pack up faster. He’d tried explaining himself before, had tried rebutting insults with insults of his own, and neither approach had helped him in the slightest. Best to just ignore the bullies and be on his merry way.

“Hey, Peter, I’m talking to you!”

Despite himself, Peter looked up, looked into Billy’s grinning face, noticed that Billy had a number of accomplices, that he was nearly surrounded.

“Or are you going to go see your freak of a father and your--”

Regarding what followed, onlookers could agree on two things, two things that seemed to contradict one another.

The first was that Peter did not touch Billy, did not lay a single hand on the other boy. On the contrary, Peter leaned back slightly and closed his eyes, as if he were meditating or trying to solve a difficult math problem.

The second was that  _ something _ caused Billy’s right arm to break at that moment, a clean fracture of the forearm forming seemingly out of thin air.

As Billy wailed in pain and the group around them dispersed, Peter shot Billy a tight grin.

“My father’s not a freak.”

The words hung in the air as Peter walked away, victorious.

 

When Peter was sixteen, he began working at the local Dairy Queen.

It wasn’t about the money, not really, though his family did need the money--one could only go so long without going to the stores before people began to talk. But more than that, Peter was glad for the opportunity to prove himself, to fit into his community. Peter didn’t mind the time expended doing menial tasks at work, or how he always smelled like stale ice cream when he came home. At least at Dairy Queen, he could forget all his worries for a while, lose himself in helping others.

At least at Dairy Queen, he was more than what his schoolyard peers thought of him.

 

When Peter was seventeen, he wore a cap and gown and walked across a stage and took a diploma from the hands of his high school principal, and it all felt like one gigantic anticlimax.

For most of Peter’s peers, high school graduation was a big deal, a chance to finally move into the next stage of their lives. Some were going to work on the family farm, or had secured jobs elsewhere; others were off to study further at the local community college; a few were going even further, studying at universities far from their little hometown in Missouri.

Peter didn’t have any big plans like that lined up. His father had subtly but clearly discouraged him when the subject of college applications came up, and while working at Dairy Queen was a decent way to pass the time, he couldn’t see himself turning it into a career. There had to be something else, something better to do with himself... but whatever that something was, Peter couldn’t put his finger on it.

So Peter worked through the summer, picking up shifts at Dairy Queen here and there, and he waited.

 

When Peter turned eighteen, Ego took him to their planet and explained what he had been planning all along, and everything finally fell into place.

Expansion, he called it. A way of spreading their power across the universe. Ego showed Peter what it might look like, and it was a glorious sight, one that brought Peter to the peak of ecstasy.

They squabbled over some of the details, even fought one another, their battles a grand spectacle that both knew would cause no real damage so long as the light below their feet kept shining. But eventually they stopped fighting and worked out an arrangement that they could both live with.

Their agreement was this:

Earth was here to stay.

The nine planets in the solar system that Peter had learned about time and time again in school would remain untouched.

Even the Oort cloud, with which Peter was only vaguely familiar, would not become part of their grand plan.

But the rest of the world, the galaxy, the universe--that was theirs for the taking.

And so they took.

Peter spared a thought, as the seeds Ego had planted long ago grew and grew, for the astronomers and other stargazers back on Earth who must be confused by the sight of familiar constellations fading away, of star after star blinking out of existence.

Peter’s mother cried when they told her what they’d done, and Peter didn’t understand why.

The man she loved was a god, her son was a demigod, and they had just proven it for all the world to see.

What was so wrong with that?


End file.
